Deciding where to breed often constitutes a critical component of reproductive success, but the factors mediating these decisions remain unknown for many taxa. For example, in species where dispersal is sex-biased, individuals sometimes opt to breed within natal territories. We explored how phenotypic quality, reproductive success, and demography intersect to shape dispersal decisions in golden lion tamarins (Leontopithecus rosalia), a species in which both sexes vary in their propensity to disperse (28 females (Ndispersing=10; Nphilopatric=18) and 36 males (Ndispersing=26; Nphilopatric=10). Our results indicated that natal breeding may have disadvantaged females with regard to adult body weights (Welch’s t test: t=1.982; sd=34.115; D=0.686) and offspring survival (Cox Proportional Hazards Regression: RR (95% CI)=3.923 (1.871-8.228)), whereas philopatric and dispersing males were relatively similar in these metrics (t=-1.521; sd=34.848; D=0.539; RR (95% CI)=0.621 (0.331-1.165)). Multimodel inference using AICc indicated that breeding group size and population density also shaped dispersal decisions in sex-specific ways. Taken together, our findings demonstrate that males and females likely exhibited divergent dispersal strategies, which may have important implications for genetic structuring across populations and social dynamics.